Today I made a cannon

[KMinAF]

What do you get when you take a scrap piece of rod, a piece of oak drawer front, an idle machine lathe and a rainy day? A cannon!

After I finished I got to wondering what if I drilled a fuse port, added some gun powder from a 22 shell then lit it........ naw that's just silly talk

 

[terry603]

I like it

 

[dirtyboots]

step 1) drill fuse port

step 2) load

step 3) post video with results

That is too awesome!

 

[Shadowdog500]

I like the idea of loading it and shooting it but am wondering if those trunnions that come out of the side of the cannon are single rod that goes through the center of the barrel? If so may be difficult to make go bang.

Chris

 

[Kellyblues]

Very cool. Long fuse. Loooooooong fuse just to be safe.

 

[kbs2244]

You have a lot more steel around the bore than any commercial 22 gun.
Just be sure you keep it from rolling back in recoil.
Make use of the little knob you put on the back.

 

[turbowoodworker]

Don't use smokeless powder. get some Pyrodex or 2F black powder and give it a try with a loose packing first. Might want to anchor it to a heavier board and not stand right behind it.
What caliber is the bore?

 

[GRX]

May be safer than the Mag Light zip gun.

 

[rsanter]

Sorry to say, that is not a cannon.
That is a model of a cannon at best and to many that is a decorator cannon look a like piece.

If you want it to be a cannon then get the drill out and make the hole so you can fire it.

Bob

 

[404]

Don't use smokeless powder. get some Pyrodex or 2F black powder and give it a try with a loose packing first. Might want to anchor it to a heavier board and not stand right behind it.
What caliber is the bore?

This. Do not use smokeless powder. The diameter of the barrel may be large, but a real gun chamber is heat treated alloy steel. If this were mine I would dig a pit to put it in so any fragments hit dirt not me.

Actually if this were mine I would not fire it.

Now if one could instrument this with strain gauges and know the yield strength of the material then one can know how far away one is from disaster..

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

What do you get when you take a scrap piece of rod, a piece of oak drawer front, an idle machine lathe and a rainy day?...

Here, hold my beer and I'll show 'ya!

 

[Bib Overalls]

I'm thinking "Darwin Awards."

 

[tcsalvage]

I used to build cannons, lots of them. Your cannon if fired with black power would at the very least blow the carriage apart and at the worst the breach would fail. Instead of mounting in a wood carriage mine where mounted in steel blocks or bolted to vehicles to keep them from ''taking off'', the vehicle mounted cannons shot tennis balls and where fired with cordite NOT powder. The .177 models fired with black powder and a fuse, they where mounted IN steel blocks or held in a mounted vice. the .177 could shoot through a pine 2x4, the tennis balls, well they just disappeared off in the horizon. If not kept from moving the cannon will be the projectile, along with what was loaded in it .

 

[KMinAF]

Admittedly I got my inspiration from this You Tube video:

Unfortunately he didn't mention what he was using to fire it.

 

[kbs2244]

What a bunch of ill-informed, no real world experience, pantywaists!
Your ID to OD ratio is enough for any amount of any powder you could cram into it.
You are in more danger behind it from recoil than in front.

I have shot 22 cal pellets taken from 22 LR shells, using the powder from the shell, in high school projects just like that.
.25 inch bore and the bullet wrapped with a layer of tolite paper to keep it from falling out.

The biggest we ever did was the size of a football and sent golf balls over a mile on smokeless powder.
Garden variety HS shop steel and an ID of 1.25 to an OD of 3 inch at the muzzle.

An overload buried it 6 inches into the dirt, but the cannon was undamaged.
The force of the explosion will always take the easy way out.
And, baring stupidity, that is always pushing the load out the muzzle.

Note th ID to OD ratio on these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SoHP5A0x6PE#t=20

 

[404]

What a bunch of ill-informed, no real world experience, pantywaists!
Your ID to OD ratio is enough for any amount of any powder you could cram into it.
You are in more danger behind it from recoil than in front.

I have shot 22 cal pellets taken from 22 LR shells, using the powder from the shell, in high school projects just like that.
.25 inch bore and the bullet wrapped with a layer of tolite paper to keep it from falling out.

The biggest we ever did was the size of a football and sent golf balls over a mile on smokeless powder.
Garden variety HS shop steel and an ID of 1.25 to an OD of 3 inch at the muzzle.

An overload buried it 6 inches into the dirt, but the cannon was undamaged.
The force of the explosion will always take the easy way out.
And, baring stupidity, that is always pushing the load out the muzzle.

Note th ID to OD ratio on these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SoHP5A0x6PE#t=20

Goody for you. Feel free to share your calculations showing the safety factor of this or any other home made cannon. Show the fatigue life as well.

 

[Elginz]

We used to take the bullet out of a 22 shell and just put a match to it. Held it lightly with a pliers and try to knock down little green army men. The case would take of and go for who knows.

 

[Jrican]

What a bunch of ill-informed, no real world experience, pantywaists!
Your ID to OD ratio is enough for any amount of any powder you could cram into it.
You are in more danger behind it from recoil than in front.

I have shot 22 cal pellets taken from 22 LR shells, using the powder from the shell, in high school projects just like that.
.25 inch bore and the bullet wrapped with a layer of tolite paper to keep it from falling out.

The biggest we ever did was the size of a football and sent golf balls over a mile on smokeless powder.
Garden variety HS shop steel and an ID of 1.25 to an OD of 3 inch at the muzzle.

An overload buried it 6 inches into the dirt, but the cannon was undamaged.
The force of the explosion will always take the easy way out.
And, baring stupidity, that is always pushing the load out the muzzle.

Note th ID to OD ratio on these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SoHP5A0x6PE#t=20

Agreed! as long as you didn't drill the bore too deep, your 'canon' is just as strong as a muzzle loader.

 

[KRB52]

Not to be picky, but isn't that weapon in the first video of the bowling ball cannons technically a mortar? Too bad neither video (I only watched the first two) showed just how far they went.

 

[nine4gmc]

Don't use smokeless powder. get some Pyrodex or 2F black powder and give it a try with a loose packing first. Might want to anchor it to a heavier board and not stand right behind it.
What caliber is the bore?

Don't stand right in front of it either

 

[whyNick?]

We used to take the bullet out of a 22 shell and just put a match to it. Held it lightly with a pliers and try to knock down little green army men. The case would take of and go for who knows.

When I was about 10 a friend found a freezer bag full of loose ammo in a relative's basement, mostly .22 LR, Long, and Short with some 20 ga shot shells, .25, and .32 ACP stuff thrown in for good measure. We disposed of a lot of the .22s by prying the bullets off, laying them on a 2x4 that we propped up to make a ramp, and lighting them. They made a satisfying bang and flew a decent distance too. That was a fun summer, somehow even after I burned one of my eyebrows off trying to light a pile of powder with a Zippo my parents (who were pretty strict) didn't notice we were up to no good. We lived in the suburbs and I can't believe nobody called the cops, it was amazing the foolishness that we were able to get away with sometimes.